The First of The Few (1949)

From the April 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mainly About Ourselves

On the 15th, 16th and 17th of this mouth we shall be holding in London, our 45th Annual Conference. This means that the Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed forty-five years ago. In 1904, some members of the Social Democratic Federation, having done their damnedest to steer that compromising, reformist organisation on to the Socialist road, were expelled from it. With others, they set about creating a political party with which they could work for Socialism. The meeting at which it was decided to launch the S.P.G.B. was held at Battersea on May 15th, 1904, and the meeting to formally constitute the new party was held just off Fetter Lane, London, on the following 12th of June.

The first issue of the Socialist Standard appeared in September, 1904. The first Annual Conference was held at the old (now non-existent) Communist Club in London on April 20th and 21st, 1905, with twenty-one delegates attending, representing thirteen branches. The Party membership was then 150.

The founders of the Party were under no illusions. They knew the task that lay ahead when they gave up the Social Democratic Federation as hopeless. The issue of the Socialist Standard for June, 1905, carried an editorial reviewing the first year’s work. It said: 

  “The founders were fully alive to the fact that much spade work had to be performed; that there could be no mushroom growth for the new party; that its ranks could only he recruited steadily and, at first, slowly.”

It is true that these early members had ambitions that have not yet been realised. They hoped that the Socialist Standard would soon be a weekly, or maybe, even a daily paper. That is something we still hope for.

Our Declaration of Principles was laid down when the Party was founded. Acceptance of these principles is demanded of every applicant for membership, in the interest of the Party and the applicant. We do not want, within our ranks, those who do not subscribe to the principles. Neither would it be honest for workers to be drawn into our organisation without fully realising the implications of the principles and the nature of the Party they were joining. So, our Party has been kept on a straight course since its formation.

It has maintained its opposition to Capitalist wars during two major world conflicts, and although the first of these conflicts was a bad setback for the Party, it did not destroy it. The Socialist Standard has appeared without fail every month since the first issue and every issue stands as a record of the Party’s soundness and consistency.

The report of our 45th Executive Committee to this year’s Conference carries the statement that membership on the 31st of December, 1918, stood at 1,036. Some of our critics will point to that figure and say, "What, after forty-five years you have only just over a thousand members?” We are not satisfied with our numerical strength, but we are certainly not ashamed of it. Of one thing we are extremely proud. That is the quality of our membership. It is the quality—the understanding and determination—of the members, that gives an organisation its strength. We have seen a number of so-called working-class political parties grow into mass organisations — then wither away to nothing. We remember the days when the Independent Labour Party claimed to have over two hundred of its members elected to parliament. Where is the I.L.P. now? Where is the Social Democratic Federation, later called the Social Democratic Party, from which the S.P.G.B. was born? It had numbers, but it did not have a sound Socialist membership. Quantity, but no quality. With the outbreak of the 1914-18 war it just disintegrated. Our growth is slow, painfully slow, but it is a steady, sound, reliable, healthy growth. A graph of our membership will not show any high peaks with following deep declines. The Labour Party and the Communist Party now have numbers and sneer at us because of our size, but their members are recruited from workers who have insufficient understanding of their class interests and have not the knowledge how to replace Capitalism by Socialism, which is essential to a revolutionary Socialist Party. We shall see the day of their decline. In the interim we shall go on steadily and surely making Socialists and enlisting them to our ranks. The process will not always be as slow as it has been during the past forty-five years. The development towards Social Revolution is not to be measured strictly by the growth of the Revolutionary organisation. The workers have been, and are, throwing off the capitalist ideas that have been instilled into them. Many of the arguments against Socialism that the founders of our Party had to answer are seldom heard today. The Socialist case, although it is not widely accepted, receives tolerant attention now-a-days. The days when members of our Party had to defend their speakers from the fury of a jingoistic audience are past. The process of discarding old ideas and accumulating new ones goes on all the time, and the numerical strength of the Party that gives expression to the new ideas can only be taken as an indication and not as a measure of the progress made.

“Who can say whether even the humblest of us will not sooner or later become the medium for quickening the pace of progress and find his hands strengthened and forced by events.”

Thus wrote an early member of our Party to our 1948 Conference. Who can say? Hang weights on the end of a piece of string. Continue adding one weight after another. A superficial observer will see little change up to a given point. The final addition of the smallest increase in weight and the string will snap. Close observation would have revealed that with the addition of each successive weight the strands of the string twisted, writhed and stretched, but held together until they could take the strain no longer. So it is with society. Men’s ideas are not to be emptied from, or crammed into their heads as one empties a sack of potatoes and refills it. Old and unsound ideas can only be removed when new ones drive them out. New ideas are continuously being accumulated until the equivalent of that breaking point is reached. Not until a man’s mind has been cleared of its Capitalist notions by the introduction of Socialist ideas does he embrace the Socialist Party. The minds of all workers in the Capitalist world are undergoing this process and are progressing, in varying degrees, towards a Socialist understanding. Our task is to assist the process.

We are not alone in the task. The undertaker and the midwife are our allies. One carries away those who are so imbued with Capitalist ideas that they can only with great difficulty assimilate any others. The other brings in a new generation, as yet unsullied by the bilge that flows from the pulpits, the radio sets, the film studios and from Fleet Street. The development of Capitalism, including the work of Socialists, will mould them in the right shape.

We are proud of our Party. With all its limitations, its small numbers and its smaller funds, we are proud to be members of it. Forty years ago, Mr. Lawler Wilson, a prominent anti-Socialist, wrote a book entitled, “The Menace of Socialism,” in which he said, referring to the S.P.G.B.:

“The members are Marxians and Revolutionaries preaching the Class War. The catechumens of the party are put through a rigid course of training in the principles of their creed, which they must be prepared to defend at the risk of their liberty. What is most remarkable and disquieting about this organisation is the fact that the members are unquestionably higher-grade working-men of great intelligence, respectability and energy. They are, as a whole, the best informed Socialists in the country, and would make incomparable soldiers, or desperate barricadists. As revolutionaries they deserve no mercy; as men they command respect.”

That is certainly spreading it on thick. We are not higher-grade or more intelligent than other workers, we do not wish to become soldiers and we do not intend to be barricadists. But we are gratified to be members of a Party that drew such comments from its opponents, for our organisation stands as sound now as it did when that was written.

These reflections into the past and the future remind us of the words of William Morris:

  “One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman. Two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad. Ten men sharing an idea begin to act. A hundred draw attention as fanatics. A thousand and society begins to tremble. A hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories, tangible and real. And why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace on earth? You and I who agree together, if is we who have to answer this question.

W. Waters

"Socialist" Unity in U.S.A. (1950)

Editorial from the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two American reformist organisations, the "Socialist Party" and the "Social Democratic Federation," have decided to unite in the blessed name of "Socialist Unity." How little the united organisation will have to do with Socialism is shown in the same issue of the "Call" (S.P. of America) that reports the decision to unite.

In this issue (10th February, 1950) Mr. Norman Thomas, on behalf of the S.P.A., and August Claessens, on behalf of the S.D.F., both complain bitterly about Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Junr., because, at a public dinner he said: —

“Let me make this dear. As a Democrat. I hate Socialism just as much as I hate Communism or Fascism or any other ism."

Of course, the S.P.A. and the S.D.F. are entitled to attack Mr. Roosevelt who is a supporter of Capitalism; what could be more natural? But that is only half the story. Their indignation arises from the fact that these two so-called socialist parties supported Mr. Roosevelt when he was "elected to Congress on the Liberal Party ticket, having failed to get the Democratic nomination." In the words of Mr. Thomas: "Socialists of all sorts took a benevolent view of your candidacy and scores of socialists, especially of the Social Democratic Federation, were very active in your election."

And now, no longer needing their votes, Mr. Roosevelt turns and rends them. As Mr. Thomas indignantly writes: “You didn’t say that when you needed our help."

Mr. Gaessens adds a threat: "Had we known that you hate socialists we surely would not have embarrassed you with our co-operation."

Even this will probably not be taken seriously by Mr. Roosevelt. When the next election comes round this precious united "Socialist" party will doubtless again find reasons for supporting him, or some other enemy of Socialism.

When Mr. Thomas describes his supporters as all sorts of socialists " he could have added, except those who really are socialists.

Evergreen (1951)

From the April 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

To re-read a favourite book is to meet up with an old friend. Sometimes it is more. It is an encounter with a creditor you can never hope to repay. To most socialists this rile is played by the Communist Manifesto.

In these days when the word "communism” is used as frequently as “fascism” used to be, with as many different interpretations, and “marxist” is an adjective applied to everything from the forces of North Korea to the Polish dental service, it is, to say the least, gratifying to hear these words used and recognise them as clear, tangible things instead of symbols for everything distasteful.

The Communist Manifesto provides the information required, and the object of this review is to recommend anyone who hasn’t read it to do so.

Don’t let the title put you off. Any connection between the Communist Manifesto and Uncle Joe’s private army is purely deliberate—but not on the part of the authors. The state of affairs they visualise and that obtaining in Russia are poles, indeed, a social revolution apart. The Manifesto is a brief statement of Marxist ideas written by the old bogyman himself in collaboration with his lifelong partner, Frederick Engels. Straight from the horse’s mouth!

“The (written) history of all hitherto existing societies is a history of class struggles.” So begins the first chapter in which the writers briefly outline the class struggles in the multi-divided societies of the past and their final culmination in capitalism wherein the struggle has resolved itself into one between two classes, the workers and the capitalists.

It continues by describing this system and its differences from those which preceded it; how they relied upon stability while the capitalist must, in face of competition, constantly revolutionise his means of production to produce cheaper goods. He must seek new markets as the mass of wealth increases, and wherever he goes he plants the seeds of his own system.

How correct that is in the light of our own experience. The competition has spread to an international plane with new powers, first Germany, then Russia, eager for a “place in the sun.” Here lies the cause of today’s world crisis.

In spite of their scientific approach Marx and Engels do not overlook the effects of this system upon the lives of men. “It has resolved personal worth into exchange value.” is but one quotation. They comment upon the rise of ugly cities. "The work of the proletarians (that’s us) has lost all individual character and consequently, all charm for the workman.” They condemn the rapid disappearance of skill and the rapid development of a world in which the craftsman is an antiquated oddity.

For its description of capitalism alone, its history, working, and effect, it is worth a careful perusal.

The second chapter “Proletarians and Communists” makes clear the scientific approach of the Marxist.—“The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based upon ideas and principles that have been invented or discovered by this or that would-be universal reformer. They merely express in general terms actual relations springing from an existing class struggle going on under our own eyes,” and goes on to build up the case for our aim—the abolition of private property.

In presenting this aim Marx and Engels were confronted with exactly the same questions as we are today. Are we opposed to personal property? What about lazy people? What about the family or education or sexual relationships? Patriotism? Nationality? There is no need to précis their answers here. Enough is it to quote the last sentence of the chapter. “In place of the old bourgeois (capitalist) society with its classes and class struggles, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

It may well be asked at this juncture why the Socialist Party should subscribe to the Communist Manifesto, or conversely why a party subscribing to it should call itself Socialist. Engels, in his preface explains that in 1848 when the Manifesto was written the word “socialist" was widely used in connection with various reformers whose sole aim was to alleviate the major miseries of the system while leaving the basis untouched, and with various Utopians, most of whom are dealt with in the third section. When we were formed that confusion was at a low ebb. Unfortunately it has since grown again.

The Communist Manifesto is not a gospel On certain aspects they were incorrect. They were as optimistic about the rapid coming of the social revolution as the present writer is about the effect of this short introduction upon the sales of the Manifesto, and being so, laid down certain "immediate aims.” Forty years later in 1888, Engels wrote "that passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today.” And with regard to the use of force Engels views on barricades and street warfare were considerably revised as can be seen in his preface to the "Class Struggle in France,” written shortly before his death.

The Manifesto is more than a historic document. It is a crisp analysis of the socialist position in its main aspects as correct today as when it was first written.

Shortly you may be asked to fight against "communism.” You won’t be. The struggle will be one between eastern and western capitalism from which the working class can gain nothing. As the Manifesto will show you, communism or socialism isn’t a thing to die for, but a new system of society to live and work for.

Ronald.

Note: “The Communist Manifesto and the Last Hundred Years” published by the S.P.G.B., contains the Manifesto unabridged and a forty-eight page summary of the past century of working-class struggles. Price I/- from all branches or Head Office.”

Ronald

Another Wandering "Intellectual" (1952)

Book Review from the April 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Science, Liberty and Peace" by Aldous Huxley, publishers Chatto and Windus, price 3/6d. net.

The book is a short one (63 pages) and for a while we gallop merrily alongside the author, enthusiastically cheering him on as he sets forth with clearness and precision the evils of the present system of society. “The oppression of the many by the few . . . the unprecedentedly efficient instruments of coercion in the hands of the ruling minority which make nonsense of the old techniques of popular revolt . . . the poverty of the workers, not only propertyless but many deprived of skill, since the operation of semi-automatic machines does not require skill." Mr. Huxley does not believe in the theory sometimes put forward that because atomic missiles are so destructive “it will put an end to men's inveterate habit of making war." At present there is no defence against atomic attack “but that does not presage the end of warfare" as in time instruments of counter-attack will be invented. Regarding present day methods of warfare he points out that “no nation even makes a pretence of observing the traditional distinction between civilians and combatants . . . but all devote themselves methodically and scientifically to general massacre and wholesale destruction."

Mr. Huxley refers to “State Socialists" and their “nationalisation schemes to centralize economic as well as political power" and states: —“ In cases where State Socialism succeeds Capitalist democracy by non-violent constitutional means, the rules of the political game are likely to remain, in many respects identical with those prevailing under the elder regime.”

Regretfully, as we proceed, we find our disagreement with Mr. Huxley growing. He tells us “The chief consequence of progressive science is a chronic social and economic insecurity," a condition, we would point out, which is a direct outcome of the present system of society.

Mr. Huxley suggests that “through organisations scientists and technicians could do a great deal to direct the planning towards humane and reasonable ends," as “applied science has not been used for the benefit of humanity at large." He thinks that scientists should ask themselves “Are they working for the good of mankind if the results of their disinterested research increase the power of the oiling capitalist or governmental minority at the expense of personal liberty and local and professional self-government."

“They should refuse to collaborate if their work involves destruction or enslavement.” In passing we may point out there are a variety of reasons why scientists cannot exercise any appreciable influence on the general trend towards destruction; mostly they work in teams, many are working “blind" and cannot foresee the outcome of their labours. Aldous Huxley himself, quotes the case of Clark Maxwell's “study of light and magnetism," and says “he would have been horrified to know that his conclusions would be developed and used in the dissemination of maudlin drama, cigarette advertising, bad music and government sponsored or capitalist sponsored propaganda." Apart from this we must not lose sight of the fact that scientists and technicians are wage slaves (high grade it is true), and also, to quote Huxley, “not immune to deceitful propaganda, which ensures their compliance, particularly in times of national stress.”

To digress for a moment, it has been demonstrated that science can be effectively hamstrung by a powerful and unscrupulous government. The Lysenko controversy is a case in point. (“Soviet Genetics," by Julian Huxley).

Aldous Huxley then suggests the desirability of internationally organised science, an international Inspectorate and the adoption of a security measure advocated by Lord Strabolgi, namely “the pooling of all scientific discoveries considered by competent experts to be actually or potentially a danger to mankind."

We need only ponder the present world situation for a moment to realise the futility of this suggestion. Also, as he himself says; “Once suspicion is aroused" (between nations), “governments will send their scientists to carry on research in caves, forests or mountain fastnesses away from prying eyes." He continues, “International trade has always hitherto gone hand in hand with war, imperialism and the ruthless exploitation of industrially backward peoples by the highly industrialised powers. Hence the desirability of reducing international trade to a minimum until such time as nationalist passions lose their intensity and it becomes possible to establish some form of world government."

We would like to put on record our unshakable conviction that “national passions" will continue to be roused while the struggle is waged for markets, trade routes and spheres of influence in which to dispose of surplus goods at a profit.

The ever increasing use of machinery, labour-saving devices and speeding up of the workers send production skying to hit the ceiling of limited markets. To-day the Press bewails the return of Japan and Germany to compete in British markets. Mr. Huxley foresees more trouble and sorrow when industrially backward India and China develop and their goods, produced by workers with a very low standard of living come into competition with the goods produced by the “better paid" workers of the west.

We do not believe in Mr. Huxley's hypothetical “Boy Gangster" who lurks in every Foreign office, every war department and every private home and gets a kick out of pressing a button and starting a war if he thinks he stands a good chance of winning it

We diverge on many points, particularly on his suggestions for dealing with the evils he has enumerated. He mentions the idea of World Government then argues that power corrupts and suggests a limitation by “decentralisation and de-institutionalisation" into small self-governing and co-operative groups. We find it difficult to understand how this even if attainable would mitigate the evils of the system or alter its acquisitive nature, in fact, while the profit motive exists, it is likely to complicate and increase competition between groups as well as between nations. Furthermore, as capitalist society hobbles from crisis to crisis “national emergencies" would call for some form of central government. In democratic countries the government (whether central or decentralised) would be voted into power by a politically ignorant working class, suitably well soaked with propaganda and (on the whole) prepared to accept and abide by their decisions.

Mr. Huxley thinks that the workers could adopt Gandhi's idea of “ Satyagrapha,” an organised form of non-violent direct action, but he does not “guarantee success.”

This sort of action (or non-action) might force concessions on a limited scale, similar to a strike, but it would only be “a sop to Cerberus” and the worker's position remain substantially the same, i.e., a wage- slave.

Given the necessary knowledge an enlightened working class can vote for their own emancipation, which will automatically wipe out all “international tension” and war. The present system is beyond reform and Mr. Huxley's ideas only scratch the surface. He has diagnosed the disease but has not delved deeply enough for the cause (i.e. the private ownership of the means of life) so he is unable to prescribe the only possible cure, common ownership by and in the interests of the whole community.

F. M. Robins

The Fruits of False Theories (1953)

From the April 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Origins of Stalinism

In the eulogies of Stalin, as with those following the death of Lenin, the movement to which both their names are given—Stalinism and Leninism—is represented as an innovation; as an essential departure from the ideas and policies of the social democratic movement, though at the same time it was claimed to be in line with the views put forward by Marx. In fact, however, though both of them broke away from the 2nd International (which had already fallen to pieces), they carried out policies that were implicit in the aims and the practice of the 2nd International. The face of Russia today is the logical working out of these aims and policies. The disputes between the Social Democrats and the Bolsheviks, in spite of the vituperation and clouds of words, was not over aims and policies but over the methods of pushing forward the policies and accomplishing the aims. It was the utter ruthlessness of the Bolsheviks that frightened them.

Both Lenin and Stalin poured loads of scorn and denunciations upon the old Social Democratic Parties and their leaders, as well as upon the syndicalist section of the International, but Bolshevik policy embraced the outlook of them all. Lenin and his associates claimed that the Social Democratic leaders were renegades when, in fact, all that the Bolsheviks could have argued against these leaders was that they were more cautious in pressing forward similar aims. Lenin was a fraternal delegate to 2nd International Congresses and only fell out with these leaders in 1914 on a particular interpretation of the war as the propitious moment to aim at the conquest of power. Although the Social Democrats made much of the minority aspect of the Bolshevik capture of power it was also accepted in their own practical actions in spite of theoretical statements to the contrary.

What has led many people to see a fundamental difference between, for instance, the Social Democrat, the Bolshevik and the Syndicalist in the ranks of the 2nd International is simply that the International contained what is called a left, a centre and a right wing— a group that carried 2nd International ideas to their logical conclusion in practice, a group that vacillated and a group that shut their eyes to the logical outcome of the ideas they advocated.

The Future as seen by Social Democrats

To what, briefly, were the leaders of the 2nd International looking forward? A transition period in which Capitalism would merge into Socialism. And how did they define this transition period? Let us see what they had to say about it. Owing to the limitations of space we can only quote from three sources, but they were leading representatives of the 2nd International on the theoretical side—German, Belgian and American.

First let us see what Karl Kautsky said about the society that would follow capitalism. The quotations are from “The Class Struggle,” a book published in English by Kerr & Co. of Chicago in the early years of the present century.

   “The distribution of goods in a socialist society might possibly continue for some time under forms that are essentially developments of the existing system of wage payments.” (page 141)
  “All forms of modern wage-payment—fixed salaries, piece wages, time wages, bonuses—all of them are reconcilable with the spirit of a socialist society; and there is not one of them that may not play a role in socialist society, as the wants and customs of its members, together with the requirements of production, may demand.” (page 143)

Russia has carried these ideas out.

In 1907 Emile Vandervelde, another leading member of the 2nd International, wrote a book entitled “Collectivism and Industrial Revolution.” In this book he went into considerable detail about the future, and we are quoting from it at some length because the extracts give a fair idea of what the prominent theoreticians of the 2nd International were anticipating as the face of the future.

 “Consequently, under a regime of pure collectivism—to suppose what we do not assume beforehand, that this regime is to be realised some day—the land, mines, manufacturing establishments, the instruments of credit, the means of communication and transport will belong to the community: only articles of consumption would remain personal property.
 “The management of affairs, instead of being as today monarchical or oligarchical, would take the republican form; instead of being given over by right of birth or by right of conquest, to capitalists competing or combined it would belong not to the State, as it is said and repeated in order to mislead, but to autonomous public corporations under the control of the State." (Introduction pages xiii-xiv)
  "By the very fact of its magnitude, this revolution can only be the result of a long and complex series of partial variations. 'Radical changes cannot be sudden: sudden changes cannot be radical.'" (page xv)
   “In fact there is nothing to prevent us imagining a socialist state, in which individual ownership and labour would co-exist with collective ownership and labour." (page 47)

After distinguishing between the authorative and economic functions of the State—the former gradually decreasing and the latter gradually increasing—he projects across the future the “Governmental State" and the “Administrative State" based upon voluntary cooperation and then says of the “Administrative State": 

  "States when thus transformed, regulating in different hierarchical ranks the movements of commerce and finance, presiding over the external industrial relations of the different centres of population, are nothing else than Agencies appointed by more or less numerous associations, and invested with the confidence of those who have chosen them." (pages 160-161)
   "Likewise, in a Socialist state, it is after having satisfied all needs which are of general concern, after having secured for all members of the community the right to existence, that the excess of products, or rather of values produced, should form the object of differential distribution.
   “In the proportion in which it would be socially useful from the point of view of production to allow special advantages to certain workers or to certain categories of workers, in order to stimulate their energies and their power of labour, nothing would prevent a collectivist society from maintaining—mutatis mutandis—the graduated scale of salaries which exists today in the public services.
    “Collectivism does not, then, necessarily imply equality of remuneration.” (pages 177-178)

It will be noticed that at one time Vandervelde uses the State to mean governmental machinery and at another a particular society but, even so, for him the State is still something apart from the mass of people, the controlling and deciding body.

The Practical Result of the Vision

What is the essence of all these quotations but, near enough, what at present obtains in Russia? True, freedom to think does not exist there; the dictatorship is ruthless and bureaucratic—but this was the logical outcome of Social Democratic theory. They held up their hands in horror at the speeding up process which involved the sacrifice of millions of lives, but they accepted, as part of their own idea of protracted development in which millions of lives were also sacrificed in “Offensive" and “Defensive" wars, in which was also implicit the “socialism in one country” idea—the “armed militia,” the “armed people" and the “citizen army.” 

So close was the fundamental identity between the policy of the 2nd International and the policy of the Bolsheviks that leaders of the 2nd International were at pains to try and find some distinguishing characteristic that would enable them to dissociate themselves from the ruthlessness and rebut the criticisms of Lenin. They all had to agree that the Bolsheviks were socialists but —they were doing some things they “didn’t orter do"— they were forcing the pace too much. Not that this would fail to achieve the object, but that it would shake their hold on power.

After the Bolshevik Capture of Power

The third member of the 2nd International whom we will quote, is Morris Hillquit, once a prominent theoretician of the Socialist Party of America. He summed-up the position in 1921 in his book “From Marx to Lenin." Here are some extracts from it:

   "And it is idle cavilling to dispute the Socialist character of the Russian Revolution. A socialist revolution does not mean the immediate establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth. It is only the political act of seizing the power of government on behalf of the workers and with the object of using it for the abolition of private ownership in the means of production and for the development of collective work and enjoyment.
   “The Russian revolution has taken possession of the government in the name of the workers. It has effectively expropriated private capitalist owners and has nationalised the greater part of the industries. It has also written into its program the socialisation of the land. Measured by all practical tests it is therefore a Socialist revolution in character as well as intent.” (Page 33) .
   “What is the historic form of a Socialist government?
  “Every attempted answer to the question must take into account the fact that political institutions are not viewed by Marxist students as static forms, nor as definitely demarcated historical periods. The Socialist political revolution marks the conscious beginning of the process of transformation into Socialism, but only its beginning.
  “The revolution, which is the working-class conquest of the political power, leaves the capitalists for the time being in possession of the economic power. On the day of the revolution the capitalist class still owns the essential means and instruments of wealth production and distribution. It manages the financial, industrial and commercial institutions of the country and controls the whole intricate and delicately interwoven economic life of the people. The transfer of all industries from private capitalist ownership into communal property and public management; in short, the break-up of capitalism and the building up of a pure Socialist order, calls for a series of planful and fundamental industrial and political changes. Such changes will, of course, not be undertaken by the capitalist class. They can only be brought about by the workers. In order to accomplish them the workers must be in control of the governmental machinery and their control must continue until the task of Socialisation of the industries has been fully performed, all economic class divisions have been abolished, the working class itself has ceased to exist as a class, and the working class government has given way to the classless administration of the Socialist regime. The consecutive stages of development roughly succeeding each other may be regarded from different points of view and characterised according to the angle from which they are viewed.” (pages 49-50)

Here again we see clearly expressed the harmony between the outlook of the 2nd International and the practice of the Bolsheviks in spite of the hot air that developed between them over the years. Hillquit identifies the conquest of power by the Bolsheviks as the conquest of power by the workers. Thus, by implication, he illustrates the accepted idea of leadership which was ingrained in the 2nd International, in spite of protestations about capture of power by the workers. Lenin, at a time when he was writing eulogies on Kautsky and the German Social Democratic Party, was also contending that the workers were incapable of developing social democratic ideas from within their own ranks; these, he said, they could only get from outside, from the “ bourgeois intellectuals.” Stalin has only carried on this contempt for the mass of people along with the expansion of the bureaucratic machinery so dear to the social democrats.

Syndicalists and Bolsheviks

Now let us compare the ideas of the advocates of Syndicalism in the International with those of the Bolsheviks. Syndicalists argued that Syndicalism was based on the principles of Marx; they were opposed to democracy as a capitalist form; they contended that the mass of workers were ignorant and inert, requiring an intelligent and militant minority to lead and force them into the promised land; they claimed that Syndicalism was the form at last discovered under which the workers could work out their emancipation; they propagated the idea of violence against both workers and capitalists; they claimed that the days of theory had passed and the days for action had come; they also put forward a number of other ideas which, as well as those mentioned, became a part of Bolshevik propaganda and demonstrate a certain similarity of outlook between Syndicalism and Bolshevism, indicating the common source of both movements. Even the much vaunted Soviet organisation was a reflection of Syndicalist ideas eventually set out in detail as a social organisation by the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, a group that included a confused mixture of political and industrial action as a means to accomplish the end they had in view.

Syndicalism set out to secure the victory of a militant minority by the use of violence just as the Bolsheviks did. The claim that they were acting in the interest of all reminds one of the anarchist in Richard Whiteing’s novel “No. 5 John Street” who defined anarchism as a system of society in which everyone shall do as he likes, and those that don’t shall be made!

Beginning and End of the Dream

Lenin constantly referred back to the French Revolution and the attitude of the Jacobins for inspiration. The practical policy that grew out of the French Revolution and continued like a red thread through the working class movement afterwards, openly adopted successively by Blanqui, Bakunin, De Leon and Lenin was based upon the idea that an active minority can carry with it an inert and ignorant mass; it is a policy that depends upon leadership and ultimately places power in the hands of one or two outstanding people, finally degenerating into personal quarrels between these leaders as Bolshevism has amply demonstrated. The 2nd International was soaked in this despite the protestations and lip service to the control by the masses by some of its outstanding spokesmen. What Lenin and Stalin did was to stress whatever part of the 2nd International hotch potch best suited their purpose to get and keep control in Russia; thus they vacillated from one aspect to another and then back again, but always moving towards, and eventually achieving, that alleged transition form envisaged by the spokesmen of the 2nd International. Time has had its joke. The “transition form” has emerged as simply a particular form of unbridled Capitalism.

It should be clear from the quotations we have given that the Russian dictatorship, far from representing a fresh and fundamental departure from the ideas accepted by the 2nd International, has only been the logical working in out in practice of those ideas, though at a more rapid pace than was originally anticipated. The end of the process has been—just a particular form of Capitalism. No wonder Wilhelm Liebneckt was apprehensive and took time off from a holiday to write “No Compromise” in 1899, which contained the following pregnant words:

  “We cannot traffic in our principles, we can make no compromise, no agreement with the ruling system. We must break with the ruling system and fight it to a finish." (page 55)

Gilmac.

The Chinese Advance (1954)

Film Review from the April 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Socialism is impossible—at any rate not for generations because of the mass of backward people in such places as Asia who are incapable of understanding class warfare and socialism and would therefore render the advent of such a society impossible." Such a viewpoint which is held by a number of those otherwise sympathetic to the socialist cause discourages them from working for the establishment of this new society which seems to them too far distant to be practical politics. We can readily agree that Socialism, being an international system of society, requires the support of the mass of the workers of the world for its success. But peoples who are brought within the orbit of the Western world absorb present day mental attitudes and techniques at a speed truly amazing. The largest national group in Asia is the Chinese, who according to the census taken last June number 525 millions. It might be illuminating if we take a peep through the bamboo curtain at, say, just one aspect of society there to see if development compares with that of the West.

A Chinese Film

Such an opportunity presented itself when the Chinese film “The White-haired Girl” was shown at The Scala, London, and at a limited number of other cities throughout the country.

Cinema-going can be a depressing experience owing to the average run of shows being so mediocre, even though there are films made which could be regarded as competent and therefore of fair entertainment value. Once in a while a film stands out as a masterpiece—such a one is “ The White-haired Girl!'

The film was adapted from the opera of the same name and is based on a legend from modern China during the course of the recent change of regime there. For a Chinese audience it epitomises a story occurring in real life only too frequently. The scene opens with the peasants harvesting in the sweltering heat of a Chinese summer. Despite the idyllic beauty of the countryside there is a threat hanging over their heads— if they are unable to repay the loans contracted during the year the lender, who is also the largest landowner as is usual in that country, is liable to distrain on their belongings including their winter clothing. How well the Chinese audiences realise the significance of all this! To try to brave the biting cold of a Chinese winter without suitable clothing is equivalent to‘a sentence of death. In vain one old man tries to stop his daughter from overworking, for she is engaged to be married and has the additional expense of getting a home together. After lunch the engaged couple wander off for a short while and a charming love scene takes place —charming because of its restraint and sincerity.

There is a scene on the threshing floor which graphically demonstrates the exploitation of the rural people. This is constantly demonstrated in similar scenes in real life in China. This is of especial interest because exploitation in our industrial society is camouflaged by the wages system. The landlord’s large proportion of the grain is measured out contrasting with the pitiful remainder as the farmer’s reward for a year’s toil. The rewards of arduous toil are insufficient to meet the landlord’s demands and he asks for the girl in lieu of repayment. The father’s misery provides a poignant moment of the film and is acted with transcendant skill. On New Year’s eve she falls asleep on his shoulder. He gently replaces her on the bed, kisses her, then restraining his bursting tears goes in the snow to the landlord’s house and poisons himself on the threshold. He had hoped by this gesture to shame the landlord out of his bargain but it was in vain. The landlord comes next day—in China it is customary to settle debts by the New Year—and takes the girl to his home. Much to his chagrin she is taken over by the autocratic mother—a commonplace character in many families in China despite the apparently lowly place that women appear to have—for service in the women’s quarters as a slave. However, the landlord manages to violate her in the end. With the aid of another servant, her fiancé helps her to escape, is foiled in the attempt and fleeing the district, joins up with the Red Army. Eventually he becomes the leader of a detachment and later, when the Reds have conquered the area, is sent back to his own village to enforce the new land distribution laws. Meanwhile the girl becomes pregnant and, helped by another servant escapes to a nearby mountain cave. There in a scene marked by exquisite delicacy she gives birth to her baby. It dies. Her hair turns white.

Sleeping in the cave she lives off wild berries and plants eking this out by stealing the offerings from a lonely Buddhist temple and with her white hair becomes a legend in the neighbourhood. The landlord in order to distract the attention of the newly arrived Reds from his own short-comings, deliberately fires a house in the village and blames the white-haired apparition. The Red detachment goes off to probe this tale and the long-lost lovers are dramatically reunited.

The landlord is judged by The People’s Court, composed of villagers, who assemble and listen to the girl's charges against the landlord. Unable to control their passion the villagers try to lynch him but the Red Army officer insists on law and order. So the case proceeds according to the letter of the law. The accused is sentenced to death, and his land distributed to the peasants.

Here you see a fair replica of a scene that was enacted in many villages throughout China when captured by the Red Army.

Dramatic Art in Post-War China

A rapid expansion and development of dramatic art took place in the Mongol Dynasty of the 13th century although more rudimentary performances were known over the preceding 2,000 years.

The displacement of civil servants by Mongol and other foreigners during this period and the discontinuance of the classical examinations for the civil service relieved the educated from their preoccupation with classical literature, hitherto essential for the examinations, and thus freed them to write novels and plays.

A further literary renaissance coinciding with the founding of the Republic in 1911 also included dramatic art.

The standard of acting on the Chinese stage is very high—it has to be—for the production has not the assistance from stage scenery or effects. In this respect it resembles the Elizabethan stage. Their plays would be called operas in this country for the words are sung to music provided by an orchestra. This development from the opera was demonstrated in the film where the words were sung to an orchestral background. Percussion instruments which underline and emphasize the important lines in the traditional Chinese opera were absent in the music for this film while the haunting Chinese melodies composed in the western idiom revealed the influence of Western capitalism.

“The White-haired Girl" is more directly derived from the Yang-ko, a traditional village fertility folk dance. During the war against Japan this popular entertainment was developed and changed to meet the needs of Communist Party propaganda designed for a population who, not being able to read, were unable to be doctrinated with the written word. Various specific characters were introduced. After the villagers had joined in, the dance troupe would present a play. 

The film demonstrates these diverse influences and also shows clearly the impact of capitalist ideology, as represented by the Land Reform Laws imposed on the old traditional social set-up of the landlord's village.

The action in the drama and the spoken passages are realistic and probably owe more to Western theatre than to Chinese opera. But as China has adopted capitalism and successfully assimilated it until now it appears to be somewhat of a Chinese variety of capitalism, so it seems that Chinese dramatic and musical artistes have been able to absorb the technique of western capitalism yet still produce a film which is essentially and completely Chinese.

“The White-haired Girl” demonstrates what is possible when the high level of culture and dramatic sensibilities and revolutionary fervour of the Chinese are harnessed to the technical knowledge of the West.

The Chinese film industry have equalled if not beaten Hollywood at what is usually considered to be its own game and in so doing perhaps indicate that the dismal Jeremiahs may be holding a mistaken view of the alleged slow pace of development of the fresh arrivals in our modern society.

Frank Offord

Anarchist Reformism (1956)

From the April 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

An article in Freedom (31.12.55) shows the bankruptcy and reformist tendencies of the Anarchist movement. The article, entitled "The Vicious Circle of Gas Rings" deals rather briefly with the monastic (set-up) of modern bed-sitters; how the landladies are after as high a price as they can squeeze for their commodity (as if other sellers aren't!); that conditions are unhygienic, and the distressing fact that a cooker is conspicuous by its absence. "If amenities were made available, such as a small cooker . . . then at least half the trouble could be melted away."

The author of the article seems to think that this business is encouraged by the State, which is actively interested in getting people to many, as a married person with Hire Purchase commitments is "less inclined to be a radical or a revolutionary . . . "The writer of the article goes on:—"No council would consider letting one of their flats to a single person. And that is one of the things we need to change."

At least one council (Chelsea Borough Council) lets flats to single people and we can be sure there are others. But apart from this, let us examine the logic of our anarchist's argument. If it is true that the authorities encourage the above state of affairs, so that people tend to get married and therefore not become revolutionaries, etc., and are less inclined to want the “FREE SOCIETY" which the anarchists would have us believe they are after, then their position should be one of supporting the landladies and lodgers set-up; opposing the introduction of cookers in bed-sitters, on the principle that more misery makes more revolutionaries! For, if our “bed-sitters" get their “amenities" it is surely only a matter of time before they too have their H.P. commitments and are lost in the day-dream world of trying to keep up with the Jones’s!

The fact is that neither by increasing misery nor by tinkering around with the effects of Capitalism (a gas stove here or there) can we get rid of the class problems of this society. It is property—the ownership by a few, to the exclusion of the many, which causes social problems. Whether it is war—the squabble over property in the form of markets, realisation of profits, sources of raw materials, trade routes, etc., by National groups, or poverty —the position that all workers are in—lacking enough of the things of life to lead a comfortable existence, harassed by insecurity, fear of unemployment, etc., the fact that workers, generally speaking, never get more of the wealth produced by them, than is necessary for them to reproduce themselves as wage-workers. Or even the more superficial problems like refusing to work with coloured people; and “bed-sitters.” These are all the problems of a society which produces wealth socially, but doesn't distribute it according to need, a society in which the wealth produced by the working-class (who run society from top to bottom) is in the possession of a parasitical minority who own and control either privately or through the State.

To get rid of the above problems it is no good (as the anarchists do) advocating petty reforms, or the smashing of the State machine. What must be done is the organisation of the working class throughout the world into a cohesive, class-conscious whole, until Socialists are a majority. Then by taking control of the existing political apparatus, they will take over the means of living and make the earth and all that is on it and in it, the common-possession of all people, without distinction of race or sex. For only in a world where all have freedom of access to the wealth of society, can we be rid of war, poverty, bed-sitters, and so on. Such a society, of course, can only be brought about on a world-wide scale by people who understand, desire, and are prepared to work for it in an organised fashion; undermining the basis of Capitalist society and organising for a new one. rather than tinkering around with the effects of this one. like our Anarchist opponents.

Jon Keys

Proper Gander: Peering At The Peers (2017)

The Proper Gander column from the April 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

The House of Lords isn’t just a holding bay for octogenarian Caucasian aristocrats before they pop their clogs. As BBC2’s documentary series Meet The Lords shows us, it’s a weirder and more interesting institution than its fuddy-duddy reputation suggests. Despite the House of Lords’ important role in the state, and therefore capitalism, we don’t usually see all that much of it on the telly. There’s an occasional glimpse on the news, when we get someone like Paddy Ashdown (now The Right Honourable The Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon) or Melvyn Bragg (aka Baron Bragg of Wigton in the County of Cumbria) standing next to those tightly upholstered red benches talking cobblers and looking older than we remember. The producers of Meet The Lords have been allowed to film the wider goings-on in the House, including the debates, corridor chats, rituals and mealtimes. However, the price of this unprecedented access is that the series isn’t going to show us anything the state doesn’t want us to see. An undercover expose with hidden cameras and smuggled-out documents would be much more revealing, but there’s as much chance of that being made as there is a new series of Eldorado.

The image that the programme wants to present is that the House of Lords is home to wily mavericks keen to hold the House of Commons in check and who are crazy enough to go out for a curry to celebrate winning a vote. The show focuses less on the doddery old traditionalists we tend to assume make up most of the Upper House and more on livelier Lords and Ladies. Baron Bird, having gone from working in the House of Lords kitchen when he was much younger to sitting in the House itself, via setting up The Big Issue magazine, is certainly more grounded and relatable than many of his peers in the Peerage. He, at least, seems sincere in wanting to use his position to help out plebs like us. Baroness King wants to give the same impression, and says that the House of Lords is vital in tidying up the ‘chaos’ which comes from the House of Commons. This includes a proposed benefits cap for adopted children, which she fights against because she has three adopted children herself. Another peer acting on self-interest is Lord Borwick, a big-shot property developer involved with amendments to planning laws which will make it easier for him to build houses. Even if they succeed with making reforms which have some small benefit to workers, it’s still part of a system structured to defend the interests of the elite. The reforms have to fit in with what’s economically viable, meaning whatever measures keep as much wealth as possible in the hands of the capitalist class. So, both the Houses of Commons and Lords share a goal, however much the programme emphasises a ‘war of wills’ between them.

The two Houses certainly differ in culture, though. The House of Lords seems much more laid-back, albeit in a starchy sort of way. Rivalries between peers of different political parties aren’t expressed with the shouty point-scoring common in the House of Commons. Instead, they’re politely discussed over dinner, with the seating arrangements deliberately random to encourage different people to meet at each sitting. The odd procedures carried on in parliament underline how it’s an archaic, bizarre institution. Clerks wearing gowns unchanged since the 18th Century pass messages wrapped in ribbon between the Houses of Lords and Commons, while phrases in Norman French are still used in official declarations when laws are passed. ‘The most ludicrous part of our constitutional set-up’, according to The Electoral Reform Society’s chief executive Katie Ghose (quoted in Morning Star, 4th – 5th March 2017) is the hereditary peer ‘by-election’. The House of Lords Act 1999 led to most hereditary peers losing an automatic right to sit in the Upper House. When one of the remaining 92 dies or retires, the others elect a replacement from a tiny pool of aristocrats with an inherited title. Ironically, these hereditary peers are the only people elected into the House of Lords, not that this represents democracy in any meaningful sense to anyone outside the bubble.

The vast majority of the 800 members of the Upper House are life peers, appointed by the Queen and named as such because they’re there for the rest of their life. So, if you’ve ever wondered where David Blunkett, Norman Tebbit, John Prescott, Betty Boothroyd, Nigel Lawson, Tessa Jowell and Floella Benjamin ended up, then it’s in ‘the best day care centre for the elderly in London’, as one member calls it. Also skulking about in there is Neil Kinnock (now Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty in the County of Gwent), who at his inauguration speech presumably didn’t repeat his quote from Tribune (19th November 1976): ‘The House of Lords must go - not be reformed, not be replaced, not be reborn in some nominated life-after-death patronage paradise, just closed down, abolished, finished’. Now, he’s acquired a taste for ermine and collects his £300 expenses each day.

All the above are ‘Lords Temporal’, which sounds like something from Doctor Who. The remaining 26 are Church of England Bishops, collectively ‘Lords Spiritual’, which sounds like something from Game Of Thrones.

Meet The Lords is an interesting insight into those who, literally, lord it over us. The colourful characters and the strange rituals it focuses on, though, are really just window-dressing on a stodgy, elitist institution which props up our divided society.

Mike Foster

More Trouble in Africa (1959)

From the April 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was set up in 1953, it was known to be against the wishes of most of the African population in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia. They did not want to be taken out of the control of the British Colonial Office to be handed over to domination by the white settlers, whose attitude, as shown particularly in Southern Rhodesia, is much like that of the South African Government. Opponents of Federation, including the British Labour Party, foresaw that tension would increase and were not surprised by the recent disturbances in which a number of Africans were killed by Government forces. Among the Africans the idea of early independence for Nyasaland has been given a powerful stimulus, associated by some of them with more ambitious ideas of a wider nationalism, taking in all Africa.

Are they right ? Will “independence” make them better off and happier? Their African leaders tell them there is no doubt about the matter. And it is quite obvious that most Africans would prefer to put up with a lot of inconvenience, even hardship, to escape living under a government which operates or tolerates a colour bar against them. Africans are only behaving like other people, for history is full of examples of resentment of, and revolt against, the imposition on subject groups, of racial, national, religious and language barriers. And because it has happened so often we have plenty of information about its consequences: nobody need plead ignorance. What then has national independence done for the mass of the population, whether we take the European nationalist movements of last century, such as the Italian struggle against Austria or the Balkan countries’ struggles .against Turkey, or the quite recent new States set up in former Colonies? Without going into detail we can say that national independence is good for local politicians, lawyers, army officers, manufacturers and business men; it opens up careers and money-making opportunities for them, as also for local holders of government civilian posts who may have found their advancement hindered while a foreign administration had control! Sometimes the achievement of national independence helps to speed up industrial development where this has been deliberately limited by the governing Power and may make it rather easier for workers to form trade unions.

What has the winning of independence done for the progress of humanity? The accumulation of experience has served to fill many of those who once hoped much from it, with disappointment and doubt. Mr. Hannen Swaffer, who spent many years supporting Labour Party demands for “freedom" for the colonics, writes:—

“. . . at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, under my window, British people were gathering to offer thanks on the anniversary of Ghana’s obtaining freedom from British rule. Yet, in Ghana, its native rulers were oppressing the Opposition leaders—and its dictatorial Premier had boasted that he would work for a United Black Africa. Is full freedom for immature peoples really the remedy for economic injustice?”
- (People, 8th March. 1959.)

Mr. Swaffer might have added that on the political side we have recently seen military dictatorship set up in the Sudan and Pakistan, two areas formerly British-administered, and that from the standpoint of what he calls “ economic injustice,” independence has not brought anything worthwhile to the ex-colonial workers. The early beliefs of Swaffer and the Labour Party, that national independence for the colonies would solve the economic problems of the workers, were well meant, but quite unfounded. They did not understand what is the nature of nationalism and national independence. Nationalism is not just the friendly association of people who speak the same language, share the same culture and live in the same place. In the world in which we live, where military force dominates, national independence means setting up a “sovereign state”; a government which, with the use of armed force can impose its property laws on its nationals individually and on its workers as a class, while at the same time using its forces to strengthen its position against other nations. The creation of a new capitalist group able to hold its own in a competitive capitalist world is the real aim of those who profit by nationalist movements; the encouragement of national and linguistic sentiments is merely the means to an end.

This is little appreciated by those who think that what mankind needs is a set of “good” ideas and ideals, and that national independence is one of these. Holding such a conception they are shocked and puzzled when they see liberated countries falling to dictatorship, and see some Africans now preaching anti-white racialism.

So although the liberal-minded Capricorn African Society, looking at what has already happened, can say that “Nationalism is not enough,” their founder, Mr. David Stirling still believes that “ African nationalism is of itself a splendid and dynamic force to be encouraged ” (Manchester Guardian, March 5th, 1959). And Father Trevor Huddleston, who worked so hard for Africans against the policies of the South African government, still holds to his belief that nationalism “on the part of the great peoples of Africa” is “not only natural, but entirely’ right.” (He does not notice that the nationalism of all groups, including the white South Africans, appears to to them to be equally “natural” and “ right”) He backs his belief with the distorting half-truth that “over much of Africa wealth was white and poverty was black.” (Manchester Guardian. March 9th, 1959.) This is the kind of misleading political slogan on which all nationalisms thrive; misleading because when independence has been achieved the African masses will still be poor, though the number of rich Africans, rich through the exploitation of the poor, will be somewhat larger. The subject economic position of the African workers will not have been removed.

It is here that we see the gulf between Socialists and the well-meaning reformers like Father Huddleston and the Capricorn Society. For us it is a question of changing the basis of the social system as the only way to change the condition of the exploited masses, the only way to abolish riches and poverty. For the idealists it is a matter of “changing men’s hearts,” as if that could prevail against the class structure of the capitalist social system. True to his misguided notions Father Huddleston calls upon white settlers and the British government and people to choose “the path of faith ” and reject “the path of fear.”

But these idealists are not the only people who have views on Africa. A Tory peer. Lord Brand, has recently revisited South Africa, and in an article in The Times (March 9th. 1959), foretells the inevitable failure of Apartheid. But he is not relying on good intentions, or sentiment or faith, but on something more substantial. He finds that it is an economic impossibility for the mining, industrial and commercial companies, farmers, employers of domestic service, etc., to survive if cut off from their African labour force. Though the supporters of the South African government will not face up to realities, the fact is that “white and black must live together for endless centuries. They must either in the end learn to live harmoniously and at peace, or they must physically destroy each other.” Lord Brand sees that far, but no farther.

As Socialists we can say that his approach shows more understanding of the problem than does that of any of the good intentioned idealists already referred to. Lord Brand, though he never names it, is a supporter of capitalism: he believes it to be the only possible social system. He sees that capitalism has its own needs and economic laws and that, however obstinate the Apartheid supporters may be, they cannot put the clock back and make capitalism fit their out-of-date beliefs. But if the Afrikaners in South Africa cannot twist capitalism back to suit their prejudices, neither can Huddleston and the other would-be reformers make capitalism into the rational and benevolent social system of their dreams. “Liberated” Black Africa will be Black Capitalist Africa and the African workers will still be exploited, as are the white workers elsewhere. The only way out of this impasse is that the Black workers and all other workers join together for the Socialist objective of overthrowing capitalism and establishing Socialism, in Africa and all other lands. But this will involve the abolition of national frontiers and the disappearance of racial prejudices. The world will then be a place for all its inhabitants to live in and travel in, freely and without hindrance or prejudice. The Blacks will be emancipated because all workers will be emancipated from capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Rubber Bullets (1960)

From the April 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Indian police are experimenting with rubber bullets instead of lead ones. These do far less damage and are just as effective in controlling crowds. The investigation was prompted by the large number of deaths through shooting by the police during agitations in various parts of the country, which it is understood has aroused some adverse comment.
  Ballistics experts are now working on the problem at the Ishapore Gun and Shell Factory near Calcutta.

Rubber Developments, Vol. 12, No. 4.

The Missing Link (1960)

Book Review from the April 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Adventures With the Missing Link By Raymond Dart (Hamish Hamilton)

This book can be confidently recommended to readers of the Socialist Standard and all those interested in human evolution. Couched in a readable narrative style, partly because the story is largely autobiographical, it recounts thirty years' research in South Africa.

It starts with the accidental discovery in 1924, of an ape-like skull, more human than any living ape or ape fossil known. Professor Dart considered his discovery fundamental—a real missing link between ape and man—and he named it Southern Ape. As is usual, this conflicted with established ideas, and twenty years elapsed before confirmation came from fresh finds in another South African mine.

Perhaps the most interesting parts of the book are Dart’s theoretical conclusions. Basing his views on knowledge of the terrain he has proved that Australopethecus killed his prey with bone weapons made into knives and clubs, antelope jaw bones, and giraffe leg bones. Skulls of powerful and large animals were smashed in by deadly blows, sometimes from the front, and no ape can do this. Also, quite unlike apes, on occasions they killed and ate each other.

He therefore presents a powerful case for the Bone culture age of Ape Man, thus filling in many of the gaps previously existing in known human history.

The story of human descent will probably never be really complete—certainly never complete enough to convince those who can’t do without a Creator—but Professor Dart’s contribution has permanently enriched it.

A powerful book.

Horatio.

Lib-Labs or Lab-Libs (1960)

From the April 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the “left” of the Labour Party are a bunch of wordy, windy warriors who claim to be “convinced and dedicated Socialists.” They are the “Tribune tribe.”

You would, of course, be justified if you thought that “convinced and dedicated Socialists" meant men and women concerned with explaining to their fellow workers their class position in society. That this system with its class robbery, exploitation of wage-labour, and all that goes with them, gives rise to the predominant problems of today; and that the only solution is a society based on the holding in common, of all the world's wealth, by all the people of the earth— that is social equality. In one word, Socialism.

But how wrong you would be. For nothing is further from the truth. These windy wights are concerned with everything, but Socialism. Although they claim to be Socialists, their very words and actions give the lie to their claim. Any issue of Tribune will bear this out, but the issue of February 26th is a case in point.

Apart from the current squabble on clause 4 of the Labour Party's constitution—as if public ownership ever had anything to do with Socialism—one article in particular bears out the statements made above.

This article, by Mr. David Boulton, “who came into politics through the Liberal Party, but has since joined the Labour Party. . .” is in essence a plea for the two parties—Liberal and Labour —to get together. However, in the course of his article he makes some revealing statements which show how non-Socialist he and his party are. The following are two examples:

  The Liberal Party, like Labour, is less a compact body of like-minded political activists than a coalition of a number of different bodies of opinion with a startling deficiency of common denominators. Within its framework are the single-taxers, the extreme laissez-faire school, the unilateral free-traders, the incurable “lost causers” and "I’m-for-the-under- dog”-ers, “conservatism-without-tears,” preachers and the genuine radicals.
  The Labour and Liberal Parties each pay lip-service to the idea of redressing, in some way, the absurd ill-balance of national wealth in which the vast bulk of industrial property is held by a tiny proportion of the population.

There you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. Having delivered himself of these home truths, our ex-Liberal cum-Labourite then considers that “Liberal Socialism and social Liberalism”—read Labour and Liberal Parties —have much to learn from each other.

One would have doubted this as they have both been at the game for a long time, but Mr. Boulton is nothing if not naive. He goes on to make the most astonishing statement about the aforesaid parties. He says: “Both work toward a society in which wage slavery will be abolished. . . ."

Where and when Mr. Boulton? We have been in existence for 56 years just for this very purpose, and it is the first time that we have heard that this is what the Labour and Liberal parties stand for.

Jon Keys

Editorial: The Colossal Waste of Capitalism (1962)

Editorial from the April 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The colossal waste of capitalism.”

A phrase that for all its truth has become a cliche of the Socialist case. Words we use so often that they cease to have an impact.

We talk of the ludicrous waste of buying and selling: of the criminal waste of capitalist war and preparations for war: of the useless waste of potentially productive hands lost in clipping tickets, totting up accounts, filling in forms. But only now and again does the utter lunacy of the whole system pull us up short and make us see it as though for the first time. We are again struck with wonder at the way the human race can go on tolerating a world so out of keeping with its real needs and interests.

A recent issue of the Daily Mail told us that the launching into space of Colonel Glenn cost the staggering sum of £150 million. A few days later, a Sunday Times article stated that Britain had so far spent £700 million on rocket missiles with virtually nothing to show for it. Even greater sums must be being spent by Russia on similar ventures, yet Mr. Khrushchev has just let it be known that he hopes every Russian will be able to have an egg a day by 1980.

We have become so bemused by governments talking in astronomical figures that they lose their significance. It is only by a conscious effort that we manage to bring them back to their basic terms of houses, oil refineries, washing machines, boots and shoes, bread and butter.

In these days when families roam the streets of London looking for a night’s lodging, the £150 million spent on the Glenn circus could have built 30,000 houses (we mean houses and not the chicken coops which currently pass for them). For the same sum, five times as many homes could have been provided with good furniture to make them a pleasure to live in. Or perhaps a quarter of a million cars could have been built, or three million refrigerators, or 10 million vacuum cleaners, or a decent pair of shoes made for every adult in the country.

During the coming year, the British Government is planning to spend no less than £1,700 million on what it likes to call “defence." The United States will spend eleven times as much much and no doubt the Russians will be doing the same. Every country in the world reserves up to one-tenth of its national wealth for preparing for war. Some of the weapons they make are obsolete before they leave the factories, others even before they leave the drawing board. Many more are scrapped after only a few months service.

Probably no one will ever know the full amount that this country has spent on its atomic programme, and the expenditure of other countries is equally shrouded in secrecy. That the sums are vast is certain.

These are the millions, the hundreds of millions, the thousands of millions of pounds, dollars, roubles, francs, marks, yen. and all the other currencies one can think of, that capitalism wastes each year. And this only in misdirected production — we leave out of the reckoning all the other ways in which human labour and resources are uselessly frittered away.

Translate all this vast total of wasted wealth and labour into the worthwhile things of life and the means of producing them — into houses and brick factories, electricity and power stations, foodstuffs and agricultural machinery, clothes and textile mills, coal and oil, roads, railways, and ships.

Stop and think of this the next time you hear some glib capitalist politician talking of the millions that are going to be spent on a new rocket, a bigger tank or faster aeroplane, another atomic test. You will then have the real measure of that Socialist cliché—and of its overwhelming truth—the "colossal waste of capitalism."

Material World: Feeding the World (2017)

The Material World Column from the April 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

In response to the looming food crisis the Socialist Party is asked how we would go about dealing with the doubling of food production to feed a future global population of 10 billion which the UN predicts will be necessary by 2050. Many press us to promote vegetarian diets and organic agriculture methods as the key and become disgruntled when we do not make it party policy and commit ourselves to such a view. However, it cannot be for the few socialists that there currently are to usurp the democracy of those who have the task of implementing socialism around the planet, by decreeing what is an acceptable solution to a social problem and what is not.

In the world today we can produce sufficient for all to eat heartily and healthily but many people still go hungry. The problem is not in production of enough food or in the choice of what our farms produce but in the distribution of food. That is a political and not a technical issue. Our argument is that if you project present-day capitalist society into the future then there could well be widespread starvation and all the scientific or ecological proposals will merely mitigate the suffering to come. The workers who grow and harvest a cornucopia of crops live in a constant crisis of poverty, malnutrition and homelessness.

When the time comes, socialist communities will heed the recommendations of the experts in the field. These, too, will be free from the constraints of capitalism to offer informed opinion. We are well acquainted with the arguments for organic farming but, for the time being, farming is a business and like all businesses, the goal is to maximise profits.

Cereals such as corn, rice and wheat – usually grown with huge amounts of chemical fertiliser – account for half of the calories consumed by humanity. In agriculture, more than 100 million tonnes of chemical fertiliser is used globally every year, applied to about 60 percent of all agricultural crops. Synthetic fertilisers boost yields, but they contain or generate chemicals – ammonia, nitrates, methane and carbon dioxide, among others – that contribute to global warming, a report in the journal Nature Plants has explained. Nitrate-rich run-off from industrial-scale agriculture also damages lakes, rivers and coastal waters around the world, in some cases creating so-called 'dead zones'.

'A key part of this challenge is resolving the major conflict embedded in an agri-food system whose primary purpose is to make money, not to provide sustainable global food security,' the study said. The study's senior author, Peter Horton, chief research advisor to the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, explained: 'Profits for farmers and retailers rely on highly productive crops – which require lots of relatively cheap fertilizer. However the environmental impact of this fertilizer is not costed within the system and so there are currently no real incentives to fix things. Feeding seven billion people fairly and sustainably is therefore not only a question of technology but also one of political economy.'

Even the assumption that food production must double by 2050 to feed the world’s growing population may well be inaccurate, according to some research. A study in Bioscience suggests production likely would need to increase between 25 percent and 70 percent to meet 2050 food demand. An analysis by Mitch Hunter, a doctoral student in agronomy in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, says that production needs to keep increasing, but not as fast as many have claimed. Despite increased discussion of sustainability in agriculture, the suggestion that we need to drastically increase food production is seldom challenged in agricultural circles.

According to Hunter, 'in the coming decades, agriculture will be called upon to both feed people and ensure a healthy environment . . . Right now, the narrative in agriculture is really out of balance, with compelling goals for food production but no clear sense of the progress we need to make on the environment. To double food production, we would have to increase global agricultural output faster than we ever have before, and we are at a point in the developed world where we already are pushing our farming systems to the max. We don’t know how to double yields in these systems, especially without multiplying our environmental impacts'.

The difficulty of feeding the world's population isn't growing the food. It is the economic system we all live under. Within the 'no money, no food' capitalist view, hunger prevails in a world of abundance. In socialism, where the wealth will be shared by all but owned by none, the producers would not be trying to make an independent living for themselves but would be carrying out a particular function on behalf of the community where the aim of production would be to satisfy needs on a sustainable basis. This does not have to be a ‘one size fits all’ solution since socialism need not be exactly the same everywhere and at all times, though plainly its basic principles will not vary.

ALJO